So, one day you look down. Your feet are in shoes you don't recognize. Maybe you like them, maybe you don't. You can always change shoes. . . . Reinvention! . . . Your life begins here.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Pennsylvania Woman Channels Susan Smith to Run from Alleged Theft

Susan Smith blamed a black man in 1995 for her missing children. She claimed a mysterious African-American male carjacked her and her two children on a Union County, S.C., road. The sheriff was suspicious immediately, and so were many African-Americans, me included, because I knew that a black man in South Carolina would have to be insane to kidnap two little white children. He'd stick out like a sore thumb.

As it turned out, Smith had murdered her little boys.

This week we're hearing a story not nearly as tragic as the Susan Smith case, thank God, but similar. A Pennsylvania woman near Philly called 911, claimed to be locked in the trunk of a car, and said a black man had kidnapped her and her daughter, age 9.

From USA Today:

Today, the Orlando Sentinel reports that the woman, Bonnie Sweeten, and her daughter, Julia, have been found at Walt Disney World. She faces charges of identity theft and filing false police reports. (USA Today)

I heard about this story on CNN today while watching Rick Sanchez, and Ashleigh Banfield said probably what any other American more than a minute old thought. She wondered if Sweeten had not heard of Susan Smith?

Uh, I'm gonna guess "no" because anyone as lost as Sweeten probably doesn't read or watch the news regularly and so definitely would not know recent history. You don't have to watch the news regularly, however, to know that the media mentions black men committing crimes often. Sweeten was too stupid to notice, however, the kinds of crimes with which these males, usually young males are charged. The media-blasted crimes rarely involve kidnapping white women and their children.

Sweeten was spotted with her daughter on airport video, which raised flags with the FBI that she was a liar. Authorities also traced her through her cell phone use, reports CNN. Apparently Sweeten missed the 911 terror attacks on the World Trade Center also and our new world of heightened security.

Her ex-husband went on ABC and said she'd apparently lost her mind a little. Per that same story, "Sweeten is facing charges of making a false report and identity theft for what authorities describe as a hoax that may stem from an investigation into whether she stole $300,000 from a former employer."

Dr. Boyce Watkins is talking about this at BlackVoices. He lists other cases where African-American men were accused of crimes to cover up crimes committed by white people, including the Boston case where Charles Stuart claimed a black man shot his pregnant wife. Stuart, however, had murdered her. (Updated: Wayne at Electronic Village has an even better list.)

Watkins also has a series of questions, such as why is the public so quick to believe any story concocted about black men committing violent acts? He ties his piece to how much attention the media gives to stories of abduction or murder of white women and children, a topic I touched in my Grim Sleeper post, "Death and Racial Politics."

In all this, my sympathy goes most to Sweeten's little girl. She looks so confused on the video. It's horrible that her mother put her in this position.